4 Best Lawn Spreaders of 2024

There’s a tricky balance to be met when it comes to gardening tools: we want machines that will do a good job, without forking out professional prices unnecessarily.

Fortunately, Evergreen’s Scotts EasyGreen Rotary Spreader strikes a good compromise between practicality and affordability.

This reasonably-priced rotary spreader offers quite a lot of features, especially compared to other lawn spreaders at the same price-point, and it also works reliably.

When used with either fertiliser or grass seed, it spreads the particles evenly over the area, dramatically improving results compared to doing the job by hand. It’s a good choice for medium-sized lawns.

There are a couple of “learning curves” that need to be addressed, but after a bit of practise, this lawn spreader becomes easy to use. Firstly, it can be initially difficult to work out which settings are needed to achieve a particular spread rate. Given that this is important for both lawn feed and seed, some trial and error is required. Secondly, the ideal walking pace also needs to be deduced by testing a few speeds.

However, what this ultimately means is that there are plenty of settings to choose from – you just need to get the hang of them, There are various apertures as well as a wide spreading width that’s adjustable between 1.2 m and 3.4 m.

As a result, this lawn spreader is versatile to use with a lot of different lawn products, and for a variety of uses too.

This spreader weighs 3.4 kg when empty and can get significantly heavier depending on how much product you put inside. The plastic hopper is quite large, meaning it has a decent capacity, and thanks to the wide dispensing holes, the product rarely gets stuck on dry days. Cleaning the drum after use is vital, as any remaining particles can solidify and clog the machine.

The adjustable handlebar can be lengthened to reduce back strain, and it also folds down so that the whole unit becomes much more compact for storage.

In terms of weather, this spreader is best used when it’s not raining – any dampness can cause grass seed or fertiliser to stick together and this can cause the machine to jam. Of course, this is slightly impractical for applying fertiliser that needs to be watered in, as it can be nicer to put this down when it’s raining. However, with this spreader, you’ll just have to apply it on a dry day and water afterwards.

Overall, this is is one of the best lawn spreaders for versatility, quality and affordability – it’s a decent size, with plenty of adjustability and it won’t break the bank. The only downside is needing patience to work out all the spread rate settings.

The EverGreen Easy Spreader Plus does a good job of living up to that ‘easy spreader’ name – it’s an uncomplicated drop spreader with a basic design that works well. It’s a simple but effective way to spread seed and fertiliser in small gardens.

It may not be quite as sophisticated as a rotary spreader, but it does keep everything under control.

Whilst rotary spreaders can be prone to flinging grass seed everywhere, including into flowerbeds, this EverGreen Easy Spreader Plus is a drop spreader that only dispenses seed, or fertiliser, under the unit as you walk (so you won’t find yourself pulling unwanted grass shoots out of the flowerbed a week later!).

It has a max spread width of 0.53 m, so achieves an accurate application and everything is kept firmly under control. However, because of this, it may be a better choice for smaller lawns, or perhaps medium spaces, rather than large areas.

When it comes to setting the distribution rate, the process is very straight forward. The spread rate can be adjusted using the yellow indicator that’s positioned by the hopper – it clearly states which setting is selected and takes a lot of the guesswork out of product spreading.

Walking at a fairly spritely pace of 1 metre per second seems to be considered the optimal, so you can consider this your cardio workout for the day as well.

Whilst not overly large, measuring approximately 30 cm wide, the EverGreen Easy Spreader doesn’t condense down particularly well for storage, so it does take up a fair amount of space. The handle can detach, but the wheels are very difficult to remove, so it’s hard to pack away into it’s original box.

The main thing to watch out for are corners – it can be easy to accidentally distribute too much product. The drop spreader is not easy to ‘turn off’ at a corner because the aperture only closes when the yellow indicator is pointing to ‘0’. This is difficult to change whilst in the middle of distributing product.

Therefore, keeping moving is the aim of the game in order to stop excessive product being dropped on corners or at the start/end of a run.

All things considered, this is one of the best lawn spreaders if you would prefer to use a drop spreader over a rotary spreader. It won’t fling grass seed into the flowerbeds and is easy to control, plus it has clear settings to help achieve an even distribution.

For orchards, paddocks, fields, or large (and I mean large) gardens, you can’t be wasting time with a push-along spreader. There are some spaces which require professional-level kit, and that’s where the towable Agri-Fab 38.5kg Towed Spreader comes in.

It has a 38.5 kg capacity, so we’re not talking about your standard gardening tool here… the unit gets hooked up to a ride-on mower or tractor, and can cover approximately 1300 m² (that’s about ¼ of an acre) before needing to be refilled.

If you’re working on a large scale, you’ll be able to fit roughly a 20 kg bag of fertiliser or lawn seed into the hopper at a time.

This large lawn spreader arrives entirely flat-packed, and goes together easily with the help of relatively clear diagrams, although they can be a bit small in places. With two 25 cm-wide pneumatic tyres, a metal frame and a plastic hopper this joins together to be a pretty sturdy unit that copes well being towed.

In terms of performance, this spreader is very efficient at spreading lawn products such as fertiliser or grass seed across large areas. Thanks to its large wheels, it moves well, although it may jump over uneven ground. At 38.5 kg, it’s still quite light for a towable unit. The drop-spreader hatch may also need double checking occasionally – sometimes it toggles itself closed as it goes.

One thing to bear in mind is that this is a drop lawn spreader, which means that it starts dispensing as soon as the hatch is open. Therefore, it’s necessary to get a bit of a move on between opening the hatch and getting your tow-vehicle moving, otherwise too much product will be deposited in one stationary place.

Due to the design and simplicity of this lawn spreader, it’s a great option for large spaces. As long as you have a way to tow it, it’ll offer an easy, straight forward way to cover a lot of area without being too expensive.

If you’ve been previously jilted by trying to use a lawn seed spreader in the rain, only to find it blocked with soggy fertiliser or grass seeds, this Handy 80lb Wheeled Lawn Spreader offers a great solution to wet-weather work, coming with a removeable cover.

As we all know, here in the UK it’s pretty impossible to rely on a dry spell, so waiting for one to come around in order to apply fertiliser is pretty unrealistic. Keeping the product dry by covering the hopper is a simple yet effective solution, making this ‘Handy’ model the best lawn spreader to use in bad weather.

Even with the cover in place, it’s still possible to keep an eye on how much product is left, because the transparent material provides a window into the hopper – so, overall, there’s a definite sensation that the designers of this large lawn spreader had first-hand experience using these kinds of tools.

It has large pneumatic tyres that are 28-cm wide; these should be less prone to leaving tracks in the lawn compared to thinner wheels, even the lawn spreader is filled to its 36 kg capacity.

As you can imagine, there’s a bit of a workout involved in pushing this fertiliser spreader around, especially when it’s full; the unit alone weighs 12.3 kg. However, it’s a great option for gardeners who don’t want to keep stopping and starting to top up the spreader.

All of the adjustable settings can be changed from a lever on the handlebar, changing the aperture of the dispenser in order to alter the flow rate. It spreads up to a width of 3.66 m, which makes it quite quick to cover a medium/large garden, although the outer reaches of the radius will need to be gone over again.

In terms of price, this is a pretty expensive model. It certainly works well for spreading different lawn products, but it does have its flaws. Primarily: assembly is a real challenge. Putting the whole thing together can take upwards of an hour – a fact that is not helped, of course, by the inclusion of fairly ambiguous pictorial instructions.

Nevertheless, once up and running it could be a real benefit to large gardens, especially as it adds the flexibility of being able to work in any weather – it could save a lot of time!